BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Tuesday, December 13, 1825

Violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh comes to visit Beethoven today at his apartment in the Schwarzspanierhaus; later they move to a local restaurant. As usual, Schuppanzigh addresses Beethoven in the third person, which is ignored here for clarity. Schuppanzigh helps Beethoven rummage through his music, looking for the choral parts for the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony. Schuppanzigh suggests that the second benefit concert for Beethoven could be held during Lent.

Schuppanzugh believes that there will be problems with the manager of the Kärntnertor Theater if Domenico Barbaja returns under a new lease of the theater to give operas. [Barbaja will in fact rent the theater again beginning next spring and the first opera under the new lease will be given April 29, 1826. Beethoven had to deal with the manager, Duport, for the first of the May 1824 Akademie benefit concerts.] Tomorrow it’s just a matter of getting one evening, and the Theater direction does not permit a concert in the evening.

Beethoven asks, what about the first concert? Schuppanzigh thinks they can still give the first concert during Advent, at the end of this month. The second concert can always be postponed.

They briefly discuss Johann Joseph Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum treatise on music theory. Holz can order Beethoven a copy of it.

Beethoven asks how the concert of Schuppanzigh’s quartet went last Sunday. “[Anton] Halm played the Trio in E-flat [op.70/2] very well and received applause. But the Septet was again received with the greatest enthusiasm.”

The pair adjourns to a local restaurant, where they get a private room. The day is rather chill, and Schuppanzigh asks whether Beethoven would like the room to be heated.

Beethoven asks what Holz’s salary is at his government job. 600 florins C.M. in salary, Schuppanzigh responds. That’s a decent living, Beethoven thinks. Schuppanzigh agrees, for a young man. “But he’s going to rise ever higher, without knowing [anyone of influence.]” Beethoven asks how much he might make, and Schuppanzigh believes 3,000 florins. He has had no formal training, either.

Schuppanzigh tells Beethoven he must lend him the quartet in E-flat op.127 again soon. Beethoven would rather he play the newer quartet, op.132. Schuppanzigh says it is no more beautiful, but also no more difficult. Beethoven comments that Schuppanzigh always plays a Haydn quartet at his concerts. “It is strange, though, that the Haydn quartets have survived longer than his symphonies. There is not a Haydn symphony to be heard,” Schuppanzigh laments.

But Beethoven’s symphonies are another matter altogether. “The public is now completely crazy when it hears a symphony of yours. In the last large-scale Verein concert, they performed the Symphony in E-flat [the Eroica, op.55.] In spite of the fact that it went very badly, the audience was still extraordinarily pleased. If only they would allow Piringer to conduct everything, it would be good, but every member asserts a claim to conduct, and after that we have a big mess.”

Beethoven asks Schuppanzigh’s opinion of Luigi Cherubini, whose Requiem Mass in D minor was recently performed at the Augustiner church. “I don’t want to pass any judgment on Cherubini,” he answers, “but I missed the originality.” Beethoven asks what he means by that. “His own imagination is lacking; he copies himself too much; one hears passages that he has heard before.”

Schuppanzigh offers some musical gossip. Johann Wenzel Worzischek (1791-1825), who died November 19, “had hardly been dead three days, when they gave his organist position at Court to a certain Assmayer, a fool without compare. [Joseph] Eybler told me that he devotes himself only to church music, so that that it does not entirely crumble into dust. How do you like that? Isn’t it an eternal shame that Beethoven does not have this position—a job where there is nothing to do and where there is so much income?” Beethoven asks what the position pays. “3,000 fl. [C.]M. salary, 400 [fl. C.]M. in housing money, plus a Court horse and carriage.” Beethoven thought that Prague composer and organist Johann Nepomuk Vitašek (1770-1839) was in line for the position. Schuppanzigh retorts, “He is the greatest fool there is; he is also so timid, that he doesn’t dare do the least thing.”

Schuppanzigh mentions that every Friday, he is merchant Johann Wolfmayer’s guest at the Sign of the Brown Stag, where several of the criminal court councilors, including Tuscher, congregate. [Wolfmayer was a long-time supporter of Beethoven.] Weber had joined him there. “Have you seen the score to Euryanthe?” Beethoven probably has not, but comments that Der Freischütz was too flashy. “It appears to me that you are very wrong. The fiery bullets [in Freischütz] have made the opera into a sensation.”

Schuppanzigh adds that he really admires Tuscher for his good disposition. If anyone knew what their professional activities were like, they could not help but admire them, having to always deal with criminals and low-class people.

Schuppanzigh complains about the prices at the restaurant; they are charging 2 florins W.W., and there is no way to consume that much food; beef costs 2 kreutzers per pound, and wine is 18 kreutzers per measure. One has no idea how pensioners on a fixed income can afford to live here.

Beethoven marks down the charges at the restaurant. Conversation Book 99, 21a-v-26v. That concludes this conversation book. The next book, number 100, picks up in about 2 weeks, suggesting that at least one conversation book covering this period is now lost